An Overview of El Salvador
History
The Olmecs came to the region in 2000 B.C., followed by the Maya in 1500 B.C. When the Maya civilization
ended in 900 A.D., the Toltec Empire took hold in El Salvador. In the 11th century, the Pipil people became the
dominant group in El Salvador until the Spanish conquerors landed.
The Pipil Indians, descendants of the Aztecs, likely migrated to the region in the 11th
century. In 1528, Pedro de Alvarado, a Spanish lieutenant of Cortés, took over El
Salvador and forced the native people to become servants. The forced intermixing and
intermarriage by Spanish men with the Native American Indigenous Lenca and Pipil
women happened almost immediately after the arrival of the European Spanish. The
majority of Salvadorans in El Salvador identify themselves as 87% mestizo,
leaving 12% white and ~1% indigenous Salvadoran population as a minority.
El Salvador, with the other countries of Central America, declared its independence from Spain on Sept. 15,
1821, and was part of a federation of Central American states until that union dissolved in 1838. For decades
after its full independence in 1841, El Salvador experienced numerous revolutions and wars against other
Central American republics. From 1931 to 1979 El Salvador was ruled by a series of military dictatorships.
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Salvadorans who are racially European, especially Mediterranean, as well as tri-racial Pardo Salvadorans and
indigenous people in El Salvador who do not speak indigenous languages nor have an indigenous culture, also
identify themselves as Mestizo culturally. El Salvador is the only country in Central America that does not have
a significant African population due to many factors including El Salvador not having a Caribbean coast, and
because of president Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who passed racial laws to keep blacks out of El
Salvador against the belief and will of Salvadoran people, though Salvadorans with African ancestry are present
in El Salvador, the majority are tri-racial Pardo Salvadorans who largely cluster with the Mestizo population.
The enslaved Africans that were brought to El Salvador during colonial times, eventually came to mix and
merged into the much larger and vaster Mestizo mixed European Spanish/Native Indigenous population
creating Pardo or Afromestizos who cluster with Mestizo people of Indigenous and European ancestry creating
the modern day Mestizo population in El Salvador.
Thus, there remains no significant extremes of African physiognomy among Salvadorans like there is in the
other countries of Central America. Maximiliano was also responsible for La Matanza ("The Slaughter"), in
which indigenous people were murdered in an effort to wipe out the indigenous people in El Salvador during
the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising. Indigenous peoples, mostly of Pipil and Lenca descent are still present in
El Salvador in small communities, conserving their languages, customs, and traditions.
In 1969, El Salvador invaded Honduras after Honduran landowners deported several thousand Salvadorans. The
four-day war became known as the “football war” because it broke out during a soccer game between the two
countries.
El Salvador Suffers During 12-Year Civil War
In the 1970s, discontent with societal and
economic inequalities, and the repressive
measures of dictatorship led to civil war
in 1980 between the government, ruled
since 1961 by the right-wing National
Conciliation Party (PCN), and leftist
antigovernment guerrilla units, whose
leading group was the Farabundo Martí
National Liberation Front (FMLN). Many
Salvadorans, rich and poor, fled to the
United States. The U.S. intervened on the
side of the military dictatorship, despite
its scores of human rights violations.
Between 1979 and 1981, about 30,000
people were killed by right-wing death squads backed by the military. José Napoleón Duarte—a moderate
civilian who was president from 1984 to 1989—offered an alternative to the political extremes of right and left,
but Duarte was unable to end the war. In 1989, Alfredo Cristiani of the right-wing Nationalist Republican
Alliance (ARENA) was elected. On January 16, 1992, the government signed a peace treaty that provided for
military and political reform with the leftist guerrilla forces, formally ending the 12-year civil war that had
killed 75,000.
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In 1998, Hurricane Mitch
devastated the country, leaving
200 dead and over 30,000
homeless. In January and
February 2001, major
earthquakes struck El Salvador,
damaging about 20% of the
nation's housing. An even worse
disaster befell the country in the
summer when a severe drought
destroyed 80% of the country's
crops, causing famine in the
countryside.
In 2004, Antonio Saca of
ARENA was elected president.
The nation implemented a freetrade agreement (CAFTA) with
the U.S. in March 2006, the first
Central American country to do so. Mauricio Funes, a former journalist and member of the FMLN party
(leftist), was elected President in March 2009, ending two decades of conservative rule in El Salvador.
The new government focused on promoting the Universal Social Protection System as a strategy of social
development, while seeking coverage of basic social services to the impoverished population, such as
education, health, violence prevention, and basic pension. The need to halt environmental degradation and curb
proneness to disasters caused by natural phenomena has also been recognized.
Gang Truce Leads to Drop in Crime
In March 2012, the government in El Salvador reported a 40% drop in crime. A gang truce was the reason cited
for the drastic drop. For example, in the first two months of 2012, there was an average of 16 murders per day.
That number dropped to less than five killings per day in late March 2012. By April 14, 2012, there were no
killings per day for the first time in over three years.
As of May 2013, there were 70,000 gang members in El Salvador, with 9,000 serving time in prison. The Alto
al Crimen program, a type of Crime Stoppers, was in full operation. The program offered financial
compensation for information resulting in the arrest of gang leaders.
Government and Economy
Salvador Sánchez Cerén, is a Salvadoran politician who has been President of El Salvador since 2014. He
previously served as Vice President from 2009 to 2014 under the presidency of Mauricio Funes.
In the 2014 presidential election, he ran as the candidate of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation
Front (FMLN) and was elected as President, narrowly defeating Norman Quijano of the conservative Arena
party. He took office on June 1, 2014. In his inauguration speech, Sanchez Ceren said he would focus on
fighting corruption and reducing violence.
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In essence his experience and the things he learned in San
Salvador at Masferrer School from his peers he took back to his
town and began to implement it. He was an active member of the
ANDES 21 de Junio, a teachers union that practiced and believed
in the ideas of Paulo Freire and his analysis on pedagogy.
In the 1970s he joined the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación
“Farabundo Martí” (FPL), one of the five left-wing organizations,
all of differing Marxist-Leninist tendencies, that later merged to
form the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional
(FMLN).
For nearly two decades, the dominant economic model promoted a
rapid liberalization of markets and a reduction in social spending, with
little investment in basic services such as education, health and
drinking water. Public investment in the agricultural sector was
minimal, converting the country into a net importer of grains and other
basic products.
This economic model generated very low growth rates which were
insufficient to promote the development process, with rates of inequality remaining high, and the country seeing
an exodus of its most valuable resource: its people. Approximately 25% of the Salvadoran population lives in
countries that offer better living conditions, primarily the United States.
El Salvador's democratic government has added manufacturing
jobs—but faces the challenges of poverty, crime, and natural
disasters. Coffee, sugar, corn, rice, shrimp, and beef are the main
agricultural products in El Salvador.
Top 5 Exports: Knit T-Shirts, Coffee, Knit Socks and Hosiery,
Electrical Capacitors, and Raw Sugar.
Top 5 Imports: Refined Petroleum, Crude Petroleum, Light
Rubberized Knitted Fabric, Packaged Medicaments, and Planes,
Helicopters, and/or Spacecraft.
People & Culture
El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated (6.3 million people) country in Central America. About
half of all Salvadorans live in the countryside and are poor – living without electricity or running water in their
homes. Most of the wealthy families live in San Salvador in houses and apartments. About three million
Salvadorans live in the United States and send money home to El Salvador.
The government offers free education to children up to the ninth grade, but many families cannot afford the cost
of supplies and transportation.
About 90 percent of Salvadorans are mestizo, descendants of Spanish and Indigenous American ancestors while
nine percent have Spanish descent. Mestizo, a mixed population was formed as a result of intermarrying
between the native Mesoamerican population of Cuzcatlán with the Spanish settlers. Spanish is the official
language and is spoken by virtually all inhabitants. Some indigenous people speak their native tongues, such as
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Nahua and Maya, but indigenous Salvadoreans who do not identify
as mestizo constitute only one percent of the country's population.
Rice, beans, and tortillas (Pupusa) are the main foods in El
Salvador. Most people cannot afford meat and do not have enough
food to eat every day. Malnutrition is a leading cause of death
among the poor rural people.
Football or (American Soccer) is the national sport and very popular
in El Salvador.
Cabañas is a department of El Salvador in the north central part of the
country. With more than 55 percent of the population being impoverished,
the department ranks second in the country for poverty. Cabañas
Department is mainly involved in agricultural production, producing basic
grains, coffee, sugar cane, indigo, grass, sesame, and is dedicated to raising
cattle, pigs, horses, asses, mules and goats. The pottery industry also
employs some people as does gold, silver and copper mining. Also of note
is the population of Ilobasco, noted for their arts and crafts. Historically, the
Department has also had lime and cheese factories, as well as distilleries.
Human Rights
Amnesty International has drawn attention to several arrests of police officers for unlawful police killings.
Other current issues to gain Amnesty International's attention in the past 10 years include missing children,
failure of law enforcement to properly investigate and prosecute crimes against women, and rendering
organized labor illegal.
In El Salvador if a woman miscarries it is frequently assumed she deliberately induced an abortion or could
have saved the baby. Women who did not know they were pregnant or who could not have prevented a
miscarriage face long prison terms.
Religion
The Catholic Church plays an important role in the Salvadoran culture. Archbishop Óscar Romero is a national
hero for his role in resisting human rights violations that were occurring in the lead-up to the Salvadoran Civil
War. Significant foreign personalities in El Salvador were the Jesuit priests and professors Ignacio Ellacuria,
Ignacio Martín-Baró, and Segundo Montes, who were murdered in 1989 by the Salvadoran Army during the
height of the civil war.
Geography
Officially, the Republic of El Salvador, is the smallest country located in Central America. The country's capital
city and largest city is San Salvador, and the country is divided into 14 departments (departamentos), which in
turn are subdivided into 262 municipalities (municipios).
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El Salvador borders the North Pacific Ocean to the south and southwest, between Guatemala and Honduras to
the north; it is the only Central American country that has no Caribbean coastline.
Nature
The forests of El Salvador have been cut down for firewood, coffee plantations, and for the building of homes.
The result is the destruction of wildlife habitats in El Salvador.
Along the coastal plains, there are palm trees and tropical fruit trees, such as mango, coconut, and tamarind.
Armadillos, snakes, and iguanas also inhabit the warm, humid coast.
High in the mountains, at the (2,417-meter) summit of Monte Cristo Mountain, is a cloud forest in the
international nature preserve of El Trifinio. The governments of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are
trying to protect this rain forest.
The cloud forest is home to orchids, ferns, spider monkeys, jaguars, anteaters, and many bird species, including
green toucans.
Climate, Weather, and Natural Disasters
El Salvador has a tropical savanna climate with pronounced wet and dry seasons. Temperatures vary primarily
with elevation and show little seasonal change with only two seasons: verano, or dry season (November to
April), and invierno, or wet season (May to October) includes the occasional tropical storms, causing flash
floods and landslides in the lower Lempa River area, and hurricanes. Almost the entire annual rainfall occurs
during the wet season and at night. The month of July is characterized by essentially constant daily high
temperatures, with daily highs around 32°C and humidity throughout the month. The relative humidity typically
ranges from 57% (mildly humid) to 98% (very humid) over the course of a typical July.
Known as the Land of Volcanoes, El Salvador has frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity because of its
location in a highly active seismic zone. Tremors occur regularly, while major earthquakes occur more
intermittently. The Sistema Nacional de Estudios Territoriales reports above-normal levels of volcanic activity
at the San Miguel and Conchagua volcanoes. Travellers should pay close attention to all warnings, avoid
restricted areas and follow the advice of local authorities in the event of another eruption.
Sources
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/content/kids/en_US/explore/countries/el-salvador/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizo
http://www.infoplease.com/country/el-salvador.html
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0107489.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_S%C3%A1nchez_Cer%C3%A9n
http://atlas.media.mit.edu/profile/country/slv/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caba%C3%B1as_Department
https://prezi.com/bu86tnqzyyns/el-salvador/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/es.html
https://www.oxfam.org/
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